JENNIE
With my thoughts raging in turmoil, I couldn't sleep. I sat hunched over the side of the bed instead, so lost within myself that I barely heard Lisa when she finally returned. Whatever she saw in my expression made her stiffen with one foot poised over the threshold.
"What's wrong?"
God. The sight of her cautious, careful frown banished some of the agonizing tension in my chest. Gone was the stranger from the throne room. She resembled herself again, radiating her usual mixture of fury and frustration—but still Lisa, the bastard soul collector extraordinaire who'd stolen into my life uninvited.
The one who had corrupted me in more ways than one.
The one who had lied to me.
Tears spilled from my sore, bloodshot eyes, streaming down my cheeks before I could keep them at bay. Despite the roaring fire, my teeth chattered. Tremors racked my hollow frame, yet all I could manage to rasp was, "I'm fine."
"You're not." She spun on her heel, aiming for the door, "I'll get Dmitri—"
"No." I shook my head until she stopped, her back partially to me. "It's not the poison."
Just horror.
Just anger.
The worst part? I didn't know whether to direct it all at her or myself.
"Dmitri," Lisa hissed, this time without concern. Suspicion laced every uttered syllable. "What did he say?"
Anxiety clawed through my blood, sowing bitter regret. How funny that my demand for answers had come back to bite me—after weeks of questions and unintended answers, I doubted I could withstand any more revelations.
"Did… When Raphael bit me…" I closed my eyes as the memory threatened to unfold in painful clarity. "Did you try…t-to turn me?"
"That sly fucking bastard." Her voice was a low rasp. "What did he tell you?"
And for some insane reason, I found myself laughing. "That I am destined by blood to destroy you."
"Is that all?"
I bit my lip. Her tone was all wrong, suddenly neutral. Confused, I opened my eyes, gaping as she shrugged.
"Frankly, Jennie, I'd like to think that my doom lies in something a little more formidable than you." She crossed over to my position and stroked her chin, eyeing me with a sweep of her gaze.
"Don't lie to me," I countered. "Is it true?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Is what true?"
"The curse." I ran my fingers through my hair, parting the curls. Her reaction didn't fit the morbid, somber tale Dmitri had told. If anything…God, her lack of concern made it all sound so silly when put into perspective.
So silly. So morbid. So very much like Lisa.
"That my family's bloodline was cursed by a witch so that one of us would ultimately result in your destruction. Is that ringing a bell?"
"Not particularly?" Lisa frowned as though seriously mulling it over, hunting for that obscure detail among the centuries clouding her ancient brain. "Jennie, I get damned to Hell on a weekly basis. You can't really expect me to remember one witch from—"
"There's more." I stared at my bare toes rather than face her. "That the reason why you could feed from me had nothing to do with venom. No other vampire can. That's why Raphael's bite killed."
"Raphael killed you because he grows more sadistic with every year he's aged." Her upper lip curled from her teeth in disgust. "Toying with mortal lives is a game to him. Think of it as a child ripping the wings off a butterfly merely to watch it squirm."
"Then…why are you drawn to me?" I wondered helplessly. Magic would certainly explain it.
"Why?" She raised a golden eyebrow as though I were a simpleton asking why the sky was blue. "Honestly, for the same reason a lion might be drawn to a psychotic, bold, fearless little lamb who acted so peculiarly from the rest of the sheep. I think I'd have to be blind not to notice you merrily skipping into danger."
"But…" Doubt returned, planting itself firmly in my chest.
"In fact"—she swiped her finger along the length of one of my curls and then snatched my wrist, inspecting the ring glinting on my finger—"I'd say you are the very opposite of what a curse might conjure to tempt me. I've always despised the color green." She peered into my eyes with a frown. "I also prefer skin that has some definition to it. As well as sun-kissed hair—"
"You mean like Rosé?" I was too stunned to feel offended.
"Yes," she mused, the corner of her mouth lifting. "If some witch designed one of you Kims to 'doom' me, as you put it, it would be Roseann who'd fit the bill. Beautiful, sane, agreeable. A cliched, whirlwind love affair would commence, I suspect."
"Do you know where she is?" My eyes stung. Blinking didn't banish the sensation. Her ring threatened to crush my finger. It suddenly felt so heavy. "Have you both just been toying with me this entire—"
"No." She grabbed my chin when I tried to turn away, forcing me to face her.
"I don't know where she is now exactly, but the day I met her, she didn't infuriate me," Lisa went on callously. When I tried to wrench my head away, her grip tightened, holding me captive, forcing me to see. That alarming shift in her gaze—I sensed she wanted me to see it. "She doesn't make me question things I have never questioned. She didn't make me sell my soul to Raphael after one ridiculous dance. She didn't arouse me to the point of madness. So if Dmitri meant 'doom' as in 'liable to drive me insane,' then you, Jennie Kim, fit that bill perfectly."
Furious, she swiped at a bead of moisture rolling down my chin, crushing it.
"Come. Raphael doesn't keep his dwelling as well ventilated as I do mine." She tugged on my wrist, yanking me to my feet. "The air in this damn place is making you delirious."
I had no choice but to stagger behind her in a daze, my head spinning as deliriously as she'd claimed. As we entered the hall, she didn't shield me with her body this time. Side by side, we wandered the empty, breathtaking corridors until she shoved me through a doorway and I had to shield my eyes with my hand, blinded.
When my vision gradually cleared, I was convinced we'd entered another realm. One of luxurious sunlight painting a landscape of emerald green, surrounded by stone walls and positively brimming with roses. At least thousands, bloomed from vines and shrubs, spanning every shape and color imaginable. The moment I inhaled, I realized it was open to the air. Beautiful, crisp, fresh air. Up above, a blue sky melded with the scenic landscape, and I nearly forgot all of Dmitri's grim tale.
"Is this your apology?" I blurted as Lisa pushed past me.
"Whatever on Earth for?" She shot me a weird look even as she snatched a fresh rose from a nearby bush and held it out for my inspection. "It's merely somewhere we can talk in private." She glanced warily at the structure we exited from—a wall of gray stone. A castle?
"Talk about what?" I asked, struggling to stay focused.
"So, perhaps Dmitri wasn't entirely lying." She stared dead ahead, and I could only guess at how hard it had been for her to admit even that. "There's more to the Grayne's history than I told you. Superstitious drivel, but if you want to hear it…"
"Tell me." I crossed my arms, approached a worn stone bench and sat, still marveling at the wild space. It reminded me of some fairytale castle's crumbling courtyard, abandoned by a monarch who no longer craved the sun. I cradled a nearby bloom between my fingertips, surprised by the petal's softness. As Lisa neared, I whispered, "Tell me about Mero."
After the snippets painted by Dmitri and Raphael, I needed to hear the rest from her.
She came to my side, threading her fingers through my hair while snatching my rose away. "His name was Abrahaim." In a hollow contrast, her voice echoed cold and detached while her fingers casually parted my curls, easing a rose behind my ear. "Descended from Spanish Moors, he worked as a hired missionary in the heart of Andalusia, Spain. The stories he used to tell…" Something pained flitted across her expression too quickly to name. "He used to boast of sneaking into the Alhambra palace, stealing trinkets from the royal apartments. Of charming his quarry with myths of the crusades. A master thief. I met him as nothing more than a wandering vagrant."
She turned on her heel and approached a shrub containing a soft, pink variety of blossoms. She fingered one, manipulating the delicate petals with ruthless intent.
"By then, I had escaped Ireland, stealing away on an English ship. To skirt the British occupation." She shrugged as though referring to a minor inconvenience—not a defining event in a country's history. "I had no plan. No goals. I merely deigned to explore wherever work or curiosity took me. It just so happened that, in Spain, I decided to try my hand as a hired mercenary working for a merchant who traded along the coast. There, he caught wind of a series of vessels returning from some new, mythical land. The Americas.
"Rumors ran rampant of the riches the vessel might contain, ripe for the taking. At his behest, I snuck onto a ship—one whose name you won't find in the history books, mind you—in search of unspeakable treasure." She looked away, gazing into the past. "And I was nearly gutted by Abrahaim, who worked for a rival merchant. After some rather heated back and forth, we decided we were too evenly matched to kill each other within a reasonable amount of time. So we would split the treasure between us, our masters none the wiser." Her faint smile fell flat. "Instead, we found a creature far beyond our understanding."
"Raphael," I supplied as she went silent.
She returned, pressing a new conquest against my palm—another rose. "Yes, Raphael," she admitted. "Starved after months at sea, he attacked us both. To this day, I still don't know his true origins. The man is, shall we say, obsessive regarding his past. Even the dates in the history books have been tweaked by him. I suspect your sister must have come close to the truth, for him to grow irritated enough to notice her."
She sighed. "But in those early days, believe it or not, he was but a scared young man tormented by a curse he didn't understand. One he'd inadvertently passed on to Abrahaim and me. But as we realized the new limits of our power, his curse became our gift. Our revelation. Anything we wanted or desired was ours with nothing more than a flash of fangs. I struggled at first, if you can believe that."
She laughed, fingering her cross. Slow, her steps carried her away from me again, to yet another rose bush. "The constraints of my religion weighed heavily on me. I was a damned, hell-bound creature. But in a way, I grew to accept that doom. I embodied it. Raphael and Abrahaim may have enjoyed their newfound control, but I relished in it. And under my command, we consolidated it, conquering cities from the shadows, building influence through contracts as we discovered creatures more varied than even the creators of the Bible imagined."
Awe painted her tone as she snapped the stem of another rose—a beautiful, creamy white.
"A triumvirate of allies, we were unmatched. If only you knew. Your little history books. Your legends and myths. If only you knew how much of it was a lie." She laughed bitterly, twisting her blossom between her fingers. "But then…the years marched on, unending, taking their toll on each of us in different ways. Raphael grew more reclusive, content to control his reality through proxies on puppet strings. Abrahaim on the other hand, became pensive, racked with more guilt with every additional life ruined. And I…"
She turned to me, but I doubted she even saw me. Her eyes were wide, consumed by the past.
"I grew numb. Detached. It was as though I could only ever feel anything through violence. Through sowing fear. Crushing souls." She formed a fist, crushing the rose into nothing. "Destroying lives. The more they bled, and agonized and screamed, the more intoxicating the power became. There is something terrible and addicting in sowing chaos… But every drug presents the danger of a relapse. When its high breaks and you fall from the glorious height. Increasingly I felt it, that guilt. A woman desired money to save her ailing father. In return, I consigned her to years of servitude, whoring herself, no different than hundreds before her. But in those days, I'd see her pain and, for a second, I'd feel it. Guilt."
She gritted her teeth against it, and I knew deep down that if she could have purged that emotion from her soul entirely, she would have.
"It became too frequent, too much. In yet another instance, I desired the soul of a succubus, and in the process, her daughter was harmed."
Somi, I realized.
"As if conjured by heaven's mercy, Abrahaim was there to convince me that there was another way. We could control our impulses, he claimed. Leave that life behind. He made it sound beautiful. I will give him that." Her mouth contorted into a painful imitation of a smile. "We took new names to reflect our rebirth—mine a reminder of where my was soul bound, while him was a simple phrase, chanted during the crusades her ancestors fought within. Memento Mori. Remember death. From it, he took the name Mero. Then he told me of a witch he knew, powerful enough to create a totem to keep him grounded. Help him remember the humanity we both had so eagerly shed."
"Your necklace," I whispered, eyeing the silver totem hanging from her throat. The one I found in the crypt took on a darker meaning. Not a backup of Lisa's, but something far more meaningful…
"Yes." she bowed her head, stroking her fingers along her cross. "Mero had one as well."
"How?" I whispered. "Doesn't yours…help you somehow?"
She nodded. "It's more than just enchanted by petty magic. It contains my blood. When you wore it, I could sense you even while halfway across the world. And while I wear it, I can control the urge to feed."
I swallowed hard as my thoughts spun, replaying all of the times she'd forsaken the necklace around me. Namely the night she returned when, by her own admission, she nearly killed me.
"We both know how hunger can affect you," Jisoo had told her during a hazy conversation I barely remembered. "I should have talked you out of ever giving up that stupid amulet in the first place…"
"Mero never relied on his totem the same way," Lisa continued. "He spoke of a future. Of a life beyond this curse we'd been stricken with. The fool even mused of children born mortal. The only price would be his soul. His eternity. While he could never die, his seed would grow, and spread, and prosper. It was his dream. But Raphael was not pleased."
She turned, starting to pace. I doubted she was even speaking to me anymore. No, this tale ripped from her soul unabated was for her benefit alone.
"He considered it a betrayal, and in my selfish, callous addiction, I let myself believe it. Gratitude toward my old friend for showing me the light of redemption became hate. How dare he believe that we could change? How dare he threaten the world we had spent countless years creating?" She demanded the question of no one, her face upturned skyward. "Blinded with rage, I hunted him down, finding him in the Americas. I killed his lover, slitting her throat right before his eyes. He would see reason then—or so I convinced myself. He would surely realize it. Chasing happiness, and mortality and pointless joy was futile. We were Gods among men, how dare he forsake that?
"But I quickly realized that there are no gods. No Heaven. No Hell. Just pain and redemption. And as I watched Mero mourn for a woman whose life was but a speck of dust in the stream of time, I realized that my grip on power was just as futile as his lust for freedom. Neither path would lead to salvation. Just destruction."
She turned to me, running her finger across my throat. "In his grief, my old friend found a mortal to corrupt to his will."
"James," I whispered. My mysterious ancestor.
"Yes. I'm sure Mero spun his aim as some grand crusade against evil, but that was merely a lie. He wanted a bloodline to poison. A fertile bit of soil within which to plant his revenge. Yet I didn't want to fight that war with him. Call me a coward, but I alas, I was tired…"
She bowed her head, her eyes downcast. "So I went to Raphael. I traded my time in exchange for his avoidance of the Grayne. I let Mero plot in obscurity, telling myself that his promises of revenge were nothing more than fantasies. And I still believe that." She turned to me again, an eyebrow raised. "Do you want to know why? Because if my affections were the result of some twisted curse, I imagine I'd be easily wooed by a creature like your sister. I'd succumb with no resistance, hypnotized. But you…"
Step by step, she advanced on me and there was no escape. "I resist you, and you tempt me further. There is no mindless surrender. You claw your way through me like poison. There is no ease with you. I'm tormented. In lust, you torment. In pain, you torment. In happiness even…you torment me."
She trailed her lips across my forehead, lingering there. "I am the soul at your discretion. No curse could inspire that. You claimed Somi told you I thought of your sister? How could I not? Let's say she is missing. That Mero has her. That he is using her as a pawn to lure you to him, knowing you would never abandon her. Killing her without your knowledge would easily solve the threat she poses to you. And yet…" She sighed and withdrew. "I know you would never forgive me if I took her life. So I haven't. He knows as much. I am sure of it. He knows exactly how to win this game."
My breath caught. I couldn't avoid asking, "Do you know where she is?"
"I suspect she's in hiding," she said. "And not only from me."
"Oh?" Fear gnawed at my stomach. I'd been able to ignore it until now—but as if conjured by her mere mentioning, weeks of pain descended. My sister. God, I wanted to face her. Demand my own answers. See her face.
Did she ever love me?
"Well, you'd think she could send me a letter, or a phone call, or even a goddamn homing pigeon just to let me know that she was still alive."
"Would that change anything if she had?"
"It would certainly make it easier to hate her," I blurted. Only she could do this to me—drag out the truths I wasn't even aware of myself. I eyed the rose in my grasp, ripped a petal from the beautiful mass, and watched it dance in the still air. "As it stands, she can't even bother to send me so much as a postcard."
Something in her silence made me look up, but for once, she didn't seem willing to meet my gaze.
"You wouldn't keep her from me," I insisted. Why did I sound so damn terrified? Rosé's abandoning me was one thing. But if she had purposefully led me to believe…
"Here." She reached into her pocket. "I found this in your crypt. I suspect it had been there for at least a few weeks before then."
I froze as she shoved something into my hand. It was small, soft. A crumpled piece of paper. Written on it was a simple message scrawled in painfully familiar handwriting.
Jen. I wish I could smile in that scrunched-up way I used to back in the days I could easily charm you after stealing one of your biscuits. I understand that this is different. I'm trying to find my own way to answer your questions. But remember what Mother always said—above all, blood remains. Remember that and you will always be able to find me. — Rosé.
God, it was the exact thing she'd say at a time like this. Clueless, mocking, and coy. Heat burned behind my eyes, impossible to fight back.
"Where…" The answer came to me before the words finished leaving my throat. The urn. Telltale signs of dust coated the edges of the paper.
She'd stolen it, perhaps that very day I'd mentioned our hiding place.
Teeth bared, I whirled on her, "I should kill you for this. Were there more?"
"No," she admitted. "But if there were, I would have burned them."
A scream of frustration left me hollow. When that wasn't enough, I found myself pacing in a circle, tearing my hands through my hair. It still wasn't enough. I had to hit her, swiping my nails at her flawless features. "I hate you!"
"You should," she agreed, not flinching so much as an eyebrow in the face of my assault. Without even leaving a mark, my fingers glanced harmlessly off her flesh. "Because if she proves to be a threat to you, I'll do far worse than that."
The veracity of the promise drained me of rage entirely. I just felt numb, watching the hint of a monster lurk beneath her callous façade. "You had no right—"
"I don't?" In a motion so effortless that I felt it rather than saw it, she snatched up my wrist, yanking me so close that my lips met the skin of her throat. Against my scalp, she murmured, "I don't have a right to be concerned when your sister consorts with a band of cultists who want you dead? I don't have a right?"
My skin stung beneath the venom in her tone. I'd never heard her quite this cold—passionless and passionate at the same time.
"Do you have any idea—" Within seconds, she had me backed against the stone wall enclosing the garden. When I dared to meet them, her eyes were midnight, flashing with rage. "Do you have any idea what I've done—what I had to bargain—to even bring you here? Time! More than you can ever imagine!"
She was shouting. Smoldering with rage, she alone made the sun seem powerless, and the world became gray with shadow.
"Do you have any idea what I'd do to anyone who threatened you? I won't apologize for any of it. So do not expect me to. And do you want to know why?" Her mouth was against my hair, her words a low, mocking hum.
"I should never forgive you for this." I'd felt compelled to say it. To mean it, even as the words broke off in a gasp when her lips met the side of my throat. "Never… Not even if you beg."
"I never beg." The promise taunted me as she sank to her knees. In front of me. Right there in broad daylight. Swift fingers wrenched up the hem of my dress. Her head darted beneath it, and then…
Slow, deliberate pulses of her thumb nudged my legs apart and a moan ripped from my throat, echoing on the secluded silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, throwing my head back against the stone. Neither action helped reduce the insanity of what was happening.
"Stop!" I wanted to cling to my anger. I tried to.
But a brush of her touch against my skin disrupted my senses. Perhaps she had been right all along? I was delirious.
"I believe we have concluded this discussion," she murmured against my inner thigh. "I promise to avail myself to your rage at a later time. But now… You were beyond me for days. I believe I am due some kind of recompense."
Recompense?
"But Rosé is your ideal," I hissed even as my body remained rigid, at her mercy. "And it's not like you're my type, either."
As my thoughts scattered, they turned to what my pride considered her worst offense, in addition to lying and scheming. Insulting my apparent appeal.
"You're too bold." As if to prove it, what felt like her lips grazed the side of my hip, making my train of thought sputter and nearly derail. "Too cold. Mean. C-Cocky—"
"Those sound like defining attributes to me." As she spoke, she did something with her hands that stole my breath. Soft, dangerous fingertips. Rough, sinful heat.
I found myself gasping for air. "You're too blond," I breathed. "I prefer brunettes—"
"Like that man you dined with?"
I heard the question as if she'd spoken to me through a tube.
"What was his name again?"
"Hmph?" My brain was too busy detaching from my skull to keep up, floating.
"Gabriel something," she recalled. Muscle and nerves melted. The vibrations of her voice dangerously enhanced the slow, steady pressure building between my legs.
I wanted to correct her. But then her lips slid lower, too low, and I panicked, desperate for ammunition.
"Oh, him… He was charming. A gentleman. The usual list of everything you aren't—"
She went too low. My back bowed, nails scraping against the stone on either side of me for any hint of stability. In response, she laughed, really laughed, and it was sin. Evil. Devastating. My spine turned to putty. Rudderless, I had to brace one hand against her skull, fisting my fingers through her hair.
"The man shrouds himself in an unusual amount of mystic," she admitted. "I do suspect he has ties to the mob. Or that he's secretly a crossdresser given his rather feminine aesthetic. I daresay you dodged a bullet."
"You actually stalked him?" Alarm countered pleasure. Mr. Lanic may have been a money-hungry grifter, but mere greed didn't warrant the wrath of Lisa Manoban.
"I nearly killed him. Or just maimed, perhaps." Her mouth withdrew just enough to make it easier to breathe again. "Alas, a sudden intrusion into my private sanctum by a madwoman made me rethink that plan."
Had I been? A madwoman?
Cool hands brushed my neck before I could decide, seizing the collar of my dress. When my eyes opened, I found Lisa on her feet again. With little care, she tugged on the silk in her grasp, tearing it right down the middle. she was intent on guiding my arms from the sleeves so that the material could fall at my feet. I barely registered then that I was naked in broad daylight. That she was quickly removing my panties as well. That her touch became more possessive by the second.
Hungrier.
But then she entered me in a single thrust and the world fell away. Hate disappeared. All that remained was selfish, desperate, grappling need. I lunged against her, seeking only one thing. She gave it to me. She took it from me—screams, moans, repeated whimpers of her name.
Guided by her corrupting touch, I floated to heaven and crashed to Earth while the sky darkened above me.